The San Diego Padres' ongoing quest for a World Series (or at least a playoff title). "You know that many runners enter a race, but only one of them wins the prize. So run to win! Athletes work hard to win a crown that cannot last, but we do it for a crown that will last forever." 1 Corinthians 9:24-25

Hanging On!!!

I TOLD YOU THIS WAS GOING TO BE CRAZY!!!!!!

Seriously, last night’s game was a nightmare. I could not believe it. I was madder than I’ve been all year. I’m glad that you all couldn’t hear me, ’cause it was pretty ugly. I’ve never screamed at my computer so much in my life.

I’m not very happy with Mat Latos right now. I mean, goodness, he picked a great time of the season to suddenly have this huge meltdown. We NEED him right now. We need him to be that dominating CY Young candidate he was a few weeks ago.

Well anyways, I was like, this is absolutely ridiculous. It’s 8-2 in the bottom of the second. I was soooo upset, but man, we still had seven whole innings left. Unfortunately, the pitching totally imploded and the final score was 14-4. We didn’t even have a chance.

So there’s another problem: the pitching. It’s been incredibly dominant all season and we CANNOT LOSE IT NOW. If we don’t have our solid bullpen, we’re done. There’s no way we can win without our pitching.

We wouldn’t be where we are today if we didn’t have the kind of pitching we had all year. But now I’m really worried. Of course, we take things one game at a time, and today’s game is really worrying me. We’ve got Chris Young starting, right? He hasn’t pitched in the majors since April, and he’s coming off of a pretty major injury. I don’t think he’ll be able to go more than five innings, maybe 80-90 pitches. Even if he was pitching incredibly, I don’t think the pitching staff would risk him getting injured again.

So say he comes out in the fifth. That leaves four full innings that the bullpen has to take care of. Last night we used Latos, Correia, LeBlanc, and Mujica, so the rest of the guys should be well rested, but still. We absolutely need to win this game today, and those guys are going to have to hold it together.

Though last night’s game was a huge blow to the team and to the fans, we really got of easy. It was absolutely amazing to look at the standings this morning and to see that we still only .5 games behind. What a relief!! We are totally still in this thing, and though it’s been crazy, I think we’re still going to win the West.

HUGE thanks to Randy Wolf of the Brewers. I don’t know what we would have done without him. He threw an incredible game against the Giants last night: nine innings, three hits, no runs, six strikeouts. Wow. Thank you thank you thank you Randy!!!!

Guys, we need this game. I just cannot emphasize how much we need to win this game. We need to get back in first place where we belong. I know you can do it. My goodness, you’ve been proving it to us all year. Get out there, get some big hits, and win. Simple as that.

I also feel that the Cardinals have no excuse not to be in 1st place. But, because of a couple horrible road trips, they are not. We could really, really use a sweep of the Padres right now. Hope that’s alright! :P

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